Текст книги "The Cold Kiss of Death"
Автор книги: Сьюзан Маклеод
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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 23 страниц)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The red-blackness was as before: empty, silent, scentless ... nothingness. This time the mist that circled the blackness was no longer pale and far away, but pressed close, and shot through with hot golds and coppers and reds, like the rays of the sun that backlight the dark side of the moon. I didn’t want to think what that might mean. The black silk cord I tailed down and away below me.
Hand grasped tightly round the blood-slick silk, I continued to fall ...
Where was I, some sort of limbo place for the soul?
And how was this supposed to get me my body back, let alone save virgins and kidnapped ghosts? Use my connections, Cosette had said, which was fine, except she’d hadn’t told me how, thanks to Neil the necro turning up.
What I needed was help—but how, when the only ‘people’ I could talk to were other ghosts, or my local not-so-friendly neighbourhood necro? Of course, if I could make my way to a graveyard, I could talk to anyone living—whoever happened to be around at midnight. I could even touch them, since I’d be corporeal again for the hour between one day and the next—except that midnight on All Hallows’ Eve is traditionally when demons made their house calls, so midnight was going to be way too late.
But I was falling the same way I had after Malik skewered me with the sword—only then I’d tumbled back to my wedding night. No way did I want to relive that memory; one return visit was around a hundred times too many for my liking. I shuddered in the darkness as I kept on sliding down. Malik had called to me the last time, as if from above and below, but still I’d kept dropping, until I’d come round in the hallway the morning after—so did that mean downwas the past? But in the past, when I’d been fourteen, I’d never picked up the Autarch’s sword, I’d never decided to go hunting, hadn’t even met Cosette, so it had been less like a memory and more as if my adult self had travelled back to that time. Could I do that again? Could I pick a time where I could step into my own body and change things?
But when?
My descent slowed, as if the silken cord wanted to give me a chance to think.
The last time I’d revived seemed to be the most obvious point, when Malik had called my soul back to my body and I’d awakened to the realisation it was Malik who had chased me on my wedding night, Malik who had sunk his fangs into me, not the Autarch. I felt my hand slip, almost as if the black silken cord was reacting to my thought, and I dropped faster again, the air rushing past me as if heralding an approaching train—
–and the black silk cord frayed to nothing within seconds. Stunned, I hung in the red-blackness spinning slowly, clutching the thin red thread that was hooked through the knuckles of my left hand. Frustration sliced into me, sharp and painful, like the bronze sword of my memory. Damn.Whatever bond Malik had tied my soul with was broken—so now what? Did I hang around waiting to see if Necro Neil was strong enough to haul me back so I could be part of Hannah’s demon debt? Or ...
I looked at the red thread dangling below me. Necro Neil said he had hooked into my soul at HOPE—
I took a deep breath—not that there seemed to be any air to breathe—and loosened my tight hold on the thread ...
... and beige vinyl floor tiles rushed up to meet me. Blurry peach-coloured walls and bright orange chairs jarred in my vision and in the distance I saw myself talking to Necro Neil. Thaddeus, the monster Beater goblin, was standing next to him, his high horse’s tail of red and grey hair fanning over his shoulders—
I slammed into something solid and cold, something I couldn’t see. I stared into Necro Neil’s blank, mind-locked face, and our tiny shared past stretched out behind him like a stack of freeze-frame photos, right up to the point where he handed me his handkerchief and I pressed it to my bleeding hand.
That had to be when he’d hooked me.
‘I bin lookin’ for you, sidhe,’ a girl’s shrill voice broke in. ‘I got somethin’ to give you.’
I turned towards the voice and the girl pointed her foot-long carving knife at me. Her hip-length white hair floated in a nonexistent wind and scraps of washed-out grey lace, satin and velvet fluttered like hundreds of wings against her anorexic body. The faint scent of liquorice and blood clung to her like day-old smoke.
The fact that Moth-girl could see me didn’t bode well for either of us.
I looked behind her.
Bobby, a.k.a. Mr October, huddled against the lift door, hands clutched to his stomach, a dark pool of blood beneath him. Malik, a fine line creasing between his black brows, watched the Glamoured blonde-bimbo me as I stared down at Grace, who was kneeling, checking for a pulse on Moth-girl’s unconscious—or more likely dead body, judging by the girl standing next to me. The two security guards hovered nearby.
It looked like I’d arrived in the middle of Malik’s mass mind-lock—was that why I couldn’t go any further?
The red thread in my hand gave a slight tug.
‘Hey, I’m talkin’ to you, sidhe,’ Moth-girl shouted in my ear. ‘Can you ’ear me?’
‘Yes, I can,’ I said, flinching as I turned back to her.
‘Good, I’ve got sumfing to give you.’ She waved her carving knife at me, then plucked at the white ribbon tied round her throat. ‘D’you know wot this is?’
‘Yes.’ I pursed my lips. ‘You’re supposed to be a gift,from one vamp to another.’
Her own purple-painted lips grinned. ‘That’s right; well, see, my Daryl, you knows ’im as Darius, ’e said to tell you—’
‘Darius?’ I interrupted. ‘The vamp that’s shacked up with the sorcerer?’
‘Yeah, that’s ’im. ’E did ’is dance for you.’ She gave a little wiggle of her hips. ‘Well, ’e’s my Daryl, ’as bin since we was kids togevver at school.’ Her fingers toyed with the ribbon again. ‘And ’e said, if I come an’ show you this, then it means ’e can ask for your ’elp.’
I held my hand up to stop her. ‘Wait a minute, Dariussent you as a gift, not some other vamp?’
‘Course ’e did! Anyways, Daryl said as ’ow you’d understan’, an’ you’d get ’im away from the old devil-witch, seein’ as you’ve got that spell-fing on your hip for the ovver vamp, Rosa’s ’er name. Daryl says the devil-witch were on the blower to sumone an’ they tole ’er you’d be ’ere tonite.’ Her grin widened and she waved the knife again. ‘So ’ere I am, all wrapped up an’ ready.’
It sort of made sense. Darius had been there in my flat, listening and watching whilst Hannah had been talking to me about Rosa and the Disguise spell. He must’ve decided that having a sorcerer for a master wasn’t for him—not that I blamed him—and as Hannah and Neil were in it together, Neil was probably the one who’d told her I was at HOPE. Darius, no doubt doing his impression of Big Ears, had overheard, so he’d followed vamp tradition and tied a ribbon around Moth-girl’s neck and sent her to me/Rosa with his ‘request’.
But once Moth-girl had got to HOPE, not only could she notfind me—because I’d been wearing the blonde-bimbo Glamour—but it looked like she’d died even before we tried to save her and Bobby. And sad as I was that Moth-girl hadn’t made it, I needed someone who could communicate with the living world, not with the dead. Right now another ghost was about as much use to me as—
‘Oy!’ She jabbed the knife at me. ‘You needs to pay attention ’ere.’
... well, the ghostly knife Moth-girl was jabbing at me. Not that it didn’t stop me jumping out of its way. Someone points a knife at you, even a ghost one, and instinct takes over.
‘Okay, you’ve got my attention,’ I said, indicating the knife.
‘Sorry,’ she said unrepentantly, ‘but you gotta listen. Don’t fink I got much time, the stupid twit pumped me up wiv too much vamp-juice again, fink he might of nearly killed me this time, so I ain’t wantin’ to be out too long.’ She looked at Grace administering to her body and gave a disdainful sniff. ‘’Ope that doc knows what ’er’s doin’.’
I frowned, surprised. ‘You’re not dead?’
‘Not yet.’ Her Pierrot-whitened face glared down at her prone body. ‘Not s’long as the doc does ’er stuff right.’
An idea started to form in my mind. ‘So you’ll be able to wake up again and talk to people?’ I looked down as the sharp pull of the thread across my knuckles caused an anxious flutter inside me.
‘Hope so! It’s what we Mofs do all the time; gettin’ necked on ’urts like a blinder if yer don’t make yerself step away from the pain.’
I blinked. ‘You mean you leave your body like this all the time?’
‘’Course—ain’t that wot I just said?’ She jabbed the knife at me again and it nicked my palm.
‘Ouch!’ I jerked my hand back and peered at the bead of blood. I was a ghost, and so was the knife. Why was I bleeding? I shook my head. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘I want you to do something for me—’
‘No, you look, sidhe.’ She pointed to my hand where she’d nicked it with the knife. ‘See, I can still ’urt you as a ghost, and if you don’t listen, I’m gonna come an’ haunt you an’ make your life a bleedin’ hell. So, you gonna help my Daryl or not?’
‘Depends if I can ...’ I paused as an idea struck me. ‘Do you know where the devil-witch lives?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, Lunnon Bridge way, underneef it, I fink.’
The arched-roof tunnels of the bridge’s foundations! Of course—where I’d done the ghost survey with Finn; no wonder the place looked familiar.
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘if you want me to help Darius, then you have to help me.’ I turned her round and pointed at Malik. ‘See that vamp?’ I said. ‘His name’s Malik al-Khan. When you wake up, or whatever it is you do, you get Darius to tell him what you’ve told me, and tell him he’s got to come to the devil-witch’s place before midnight tomorrow night, Hallowe’en, and he’s got to kill me.’ I squeezed her arm; her bone felt as thin as a bird’s beneath my hand.
I decided that I needed more than one basket if I was going to have a chance at saving the souls destined for the egg and the demon. I pointed at Bobby. ‘Tell him the same thing; tell him if he does this, Rosa will be his master.’ Then I pointed at Grace. ‘And tell the doctor everything too—then tell her to go to the police. Got it?’
‘Yeah, gottit: you wants ’em all to come an’ kill yer tomorrow—but ain’t you already dead?’
‘Yeah, I think so, but my body isn’t,’ I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. ‘The devil-witch is in it.’
‘Ah, now I got you.’ She nodded sagely.
The red thread yanked my hand high into the air.
I pulled it down, then turned back to the blonde-me again. Icould see ghosts—but the blue eyes of my Glamoured self were still staring fixedly at Grace kneeling next to Moth-girl’s body; I didn’t appear to notice the ghostly me at all. I tried tugging the blonde ponytail, then pinching my cheek, but my fingers touched nothing, felt nothing. Could I take over my body, as I’d done when I’d picked up the Autarch’s sword?
‘You’ll give ’er nightmares like that,’ Moth-girl sniffed. ‘’Er spirit’ll know sumfing’s wrong, even if it don’t know what.’
I pursed my lips, then walked round the back of the blonde me and stepped forward, merging myself with ... myself. Still nothing. I stood and looked out of my eyes and tried to lift my hand; my ghostly hand moved, but the blonde-me hand didn’t.
‘How do you know about the nightmares?’ I asked, sticking my head out of blonde-me’s face to talk to her.
‘I ’ad it done it to meself once.’ She gave a little shiver. ‘Couldn’t sleep for a week, an’ I know it was me pal as done it, seeing as I asked ’er to. Awful it was.’
‘Were they like picture nightmares, as if someone was telling you a scary story?’
‘Nah,’ she shook her head. ‘I just kept fallin’ into this big black ’ole all the time.’
Disappointment settled like an iron ball in my stomach. So much for getting inside the blonde-me and trying to communicate, by dreams or otherwise.
The thread jerked me out of blonde-me and slammed me back into the cold, invisible barrier, and back to staring into Necro Neil’s blank, mind-locked face.
Damn. He was getting impatient.
‘Oy!’ Moth-girl ran over to me. ‘Yer gonna save my Daryl, ain’t yer?’
‘I’ll do my best,’ I said, not wanting to promise something that might be impossible.
‘Okay,’ she chewed her lip, then held out the knife. ‘’Ere, take it. You ain’t gonna ’urt no one livin’ wiv it, but it can hurt the dead all right.’
‘Thanks.’ I grasped the knife—for a ghost blade it felt warm and heavy and very real in my palm.
She sauntered back to where her body was lying. ‘Watch out for my Daryl, won’t yer?’
‘Yeah, I will. Oh—’ I realised I didn’t know Moth-girl’s name, but the thread jerked again, and the next second I was airborne. ‘Don’t speak to him’—I pointed down at Necro Neil—‘or let him see you out of your body. He’s a necromancer, and he’s in league with the devil-witch.’
Her lip curled with disdain as she looked at Neil. ‘Gotcha: ’e’s a fuckin’ ghost-grabber.’ And with that she fell apart into hundreds of tiny moths that disappeared into the patchwork of lace and satin and velvet her body was wearing.
I looked anxiously up at the tiled ceiling; it was only a foot away. I slashed the knife against the thread—maybe I could break his bond—but the knife slipped through it as if it didn’t exist. Then the thread yanked again and the wind rushed past me as I streamed through the red-blackness of wherever.
Chapter Thirty
The stench of putrefying flesh invaded my nose as skeletal fingers squeezed my throat, choking me, and a heaviness compressed my chest. Pain and blackness were eating at the light in my mind. A brief thought flickered in the encroaching darkness: being dead wasn’t much different to being alive; there were still some who could hurt you if they wanted to badly enough.
‘Have you managed to get her into the locket yet?’ A woman’s voice, far away.
‘I told you I’d let you know, Hannah.’ Anger and frustration, and something fervent in the male’s voice.
‘Hurry it up,’ the woman said, ‘there’s less than an hour to midnight.’
A tug on my hand. ‘Into the locket, Ms Taylor. Now!’ The command came again.
‘ No—’ I whispered, the same answer I’d given him before. The fingers squeezed my throat tighter, squeezing out the light.
‘We wouldn’t be having this problem if you’d waited for me in the first place, Hannah,’ the voice said curtly.
‘Why don’t you put her in the Fabergé egg with all the others?’ the woman asked.
‘Because if I open the egg to put her in, I’ll let the rest of them out again.’ The voice was scathing this time. ‘You stick to your spells, Hannah, and leave me to worry about the shades and souls.’
‘I would do, if you could handle your side of things efficiently.’ She was closer, sounding suspicious. ‘You’ve been trying to persuade her for so long that I’m beginning to wonder if you’re not enjoying this a little too much.’
The light narrowed to a pinhole and panic fluttered in my mind like a terrified flock of garden fairies. The skeletal hands weren’t going to—
‘Stop.’ I heard the command and the pressure on my throat eased up.
Relief flooded through me, pushing back the darkness, letting the light in, and though the weight on my chest still pressed me down, I drifted like a feather, the voices rising and falling around me, indistinct and unimportant.
Gradually I settled back into myself.
I kept my eyes closed. There was no point opening them, not when it would only encourage fucking Necro Neil to get his tame ghost torturer to have another go—and if I didn’t open my eyes, I didn’t have to look at my torturer’s plague-eaten face—its missing nose and rotten black stumps of teeth were still freaking me out. I lay there, trying to ignore Scarface the ghost sitting on my chest, pretending to be more dead than I was, thankful that at least the ghost’s pain-inflicting skills were limited to strangling and suffocating me; he hadn’t enough personality left to implement Necro Neil’s more inventive—and considerably less wholesome—ideas.
Never mind giving myself nightmares from trying to posses my own body, as Moth-girl had predicted: if I got out of this I would have more than enough of them to last until I hit my third century.
Of course, that was if I got to see another dawn.
And that was looking less likely every time Scarface’s bony fingers closed round my throat.
‘Well, Ms Taylor,’ Necro Neil’s eager voice was accompanied with a tug on my hand, ‘you look like you’ve recovered enough for me to ask you again: will you go into the locket?’
‘No,’ I croaked in a whisper, not entirely sure why he couldn’t force me.
The ghost shifted his position on top of me and I braced myself ready for the next attack.
‘That’s our guest,’ Hannah said, excitement colouring her voice. ‘Come on, leave her for now. She can’t escape again, not with the added Containment spell I’ve put on the place.’
‘I thought you said you could handle him on your own.’ Necro Neil’s words carried a sullen edge.
‘I can—but better to be safe than sorry. We don’t want anything going wrong at this late stage, do we?’
‘No,’ he said, and their voices faded into nothing.
I felt carefully around for the ghost knife. It had still been in my hand when Scarface and half a dozen other ghosts had jumped me when the red thread deposited me back at Necro Neil’s shiny black shoes. No one had tried to take it away from me—but then, no one had needed to, not when there were ghosts enough to sit on every limb ... but now only Scarface was left, perching on my chest like some malevolent spirit.
A bony finger poked me in the cheek and I flinched, but kept my eyes closed. The reek of rot made my stomach give a dry heave. A voice rasped next to my ear, ‘Grab ... go.’
Grab go.The words didn’t make sense.
‘Wake,’ the voice rasped again. ‘Ghos ... grab ... go.’
Ghost-grabber? Was he saying Necro Neil was gone? Why? Warily, I opened one eye and squinted up at Scarface. ‘What?’ I whispered.
His lipless mouth opened wide, the scar on his cheek splitting like a second pair of lips to reveal the glistening bone.
‘Up.’
Was he telling me to get up? ‘Can’t,’ I croaked, ‘you’re sitting on me.’
One dried eyeball rolled in its socket. ‘Sor ... ry,’ he rasped, and shuffled off me.
Relieved, I lifted my arm and rubbed my throat; being strangled had hurt at the time, but it didn’t appear to have left any lasting injuries to my ghostly form.
‘Up ... help.’ Scarface was crouched beside me now. A bony finger poked urgently at my shoulder. ‘Grab ... back ... soon.’
Mystified at being let go, but not enough to question it, I rolled over and pushed myself up onto my hands and knees. The knife was still there. I picked it up. The handle felt warm and solid, almost comforting, even if it only worked against other ghosts. I scrambled to my feet and looked around. Scarface was shuffling away into the distance, just the same way he had when I’d watched him during the ghost survey ...
And it was in the same arched tunnel—the same tunnel where all the ghosts had been gathered ... Only the place was brightly lit now, and the ghosts were gone; all that remained was the Fabergé egg, which sat in solitary splendour in the middle of a large circle marked out in red sand. Curled up next to the egg was the florist’s lad, still tied hand and foot, a fresh black eye decorating his tear-stained face.
It looked like the demon welcome mat was laid out, all ready to go.
I headed over to the circle and stopped at its edge. The boy’s chest rose and fell; he was either unconscious or asleep. I was betting on the former. I stuck out my hand, but my palm flexed against an invisible wall and when I looked down, there were flecks of green and chunks of grey dotted with rusty stains mixed in with the red sand: yew, to stop the dead from passing, and consecrated bone splashed with sanctified blood to contain the demon.
Not a circle I could pass in my ghostly form. I’d have to find some way to come back for the boy before midnight.
Who was the guest? Maybe whoever it was could help, or at least provide a distraction. I headed for the breeze-block wall at the end of the tunnel, keeping close to the side and carefully skirting round the pile of cordoned-off old bones, I eased through the open doorway and peered into the room beyond. It was the one with the wall painting of the barren landscape, where Hannah had performed her kamikaze ritual and taken over my body. There were people inside, live ones, and I ducked back, then mentally snorted at my stupidity. I was a ghost, and Necro Neil was the only one who could see me—and without his ghostly minions he couldn’t touch me, not until midnight. I crept inside, then stopped, keeping my eye out for him.
Hannah was walking towards me, sweeping the long train of a ballgown in burnt-orange and black—her Hallowe’en fetish was still showing—with her hair piled up in some sort of beehive style that sported a coronet-thing sparkling with amber and diamonds. For a second I almost didn’t recognise my body under the dress, new hairdo and make-up. At least she hadn’t managed to give me a boob job in the last few hours. When I finally dragged my eyes away from my own body, I realised who was walking with her.
Malik al-Khan.
My ghostly heart thudded: why was he looking at her with his usual impassive expression on his perfect, pretty face? Didn’t he realise that it wasn’t me in my body but Hannah? And why wasn’t he killing her? I clenched my fists. I wanted to shout at him to get on with it, but knew he couldn’t hear me. Then my heart thudded for a different reason. What if Moth-girl hadn’t woken up? What if she hadn’t managed to find him, or pass on my messages?
Damn. Plan A wasn’t working; time to find another one.
I scanned the room, but I couldn’t see Necro Neil anywhere. I looked back at Hannah, wearing my body. She had her hand tucked into Malik’s arm. They made a striking couple, her in her ballgown, him in what had to be a hand-tailored evening suit and shirt, both black, the only relief the triangle of smooth, pale skin at his throat where he’d dispensed with the bowtie.
‘Here she is.’ Hannah stopped in front of an alcove—Rosa’s alcove.
I moved forward until I was standing near enough to watch both them and the vampire lying in soulless state on her altar of stone. Candles lit the interior of the alcove, casting wavering shadows over the white shroud that covered Rosa’s body.
Malik drew back the sheet with the hand not claimed by Hannah and stared down at the grimacing, fangs-drawn vampire, his eyes as unemotional and opaque as black glass. ‘You are certain you will be able to restore her soul to her body?’ he asked.
Hannah smiled and patted his arm. ‘Of course, Malik. I told you, with the soul-bonder knife you gave me, all I need is a small spell. It takes a matter of seconds.’
Malik had givenher the knife? She hadn’t stolen it? And he knew‘I’ wasn’t me! What the hell was going on here?
‘And Joseph is correct? She has not been harmed?’ he asked, still with no change of expression.
‘There is no wound other than where her flesh was taken for the original spell.’ Hannah lifted the sheet to show the bloody circle on Rosa’s hip. ‘But that will heal once she is herself again.’ She let the fabric fall.
‘Once her soul is returned, her body will become her own again, will it not?’ He turned to her. ‘There will be no tie between her and this body you now wear.’
Anger warred with confusion and I felt the sharp edge of betrayal slice inside me.
‘None at all,’ Hannah assured him.
‘Good.’ Satisfaction flickered so quickly across his face that I though I might have imagined it. He stroked a finger along her jaw. ‘What of the sidhe’s soul? What has become of that?’
‘There’s no need to worry.’ She took his hand and cupped his palm to her cheek. ‘After tonight, her soul will be gone. Then this body and the power in its blood will be fully mine.’ She lifted her chin and pressed his palm to her throat. ‘And it will be my pleasure to share it with you, in any and every way that you desire.’
He smiled, wide enough to show a glimpse of fang. ‘Then I fear you are wearing too many clothes,’ he said softly, trailing a line down to her cleavage. ‘Shall I tear this from you, or would you prefer to remove it yourself?’
A hopeful suspicion started to edge out the anger and confusion inside me.
She laughed, a low, husky sound. ‘Soon, Malik.’ She stilled his hand. ‘Have patience; it will be better if we wait until after midnight. We will have more time then.’
‘No, I have waited long enough for this body.’ His eyes gleamed, predatory. ‘And now the prize is within my grasp, I do not wish to play second fiddle to your demon.’ He threaded his hand into her hair, tugged her head back and melded his lips to hers. She made a low moan of appreciation, her hands rising to grasp his shoulders, her body visibly shuddering. His hand tightened on the silk dress, then he ripped it down to her waist, the sound violent in the quiet alcove. He placed his palm between her breasts, over her heart, and she trembled, her fingers clutching desperately at his arms, and whimpered.
An answering shudder rippled through him.
I watched, gripping the ghost knife, as a long-ago memory surfaced and cut away the last of my confusion.
The forgotten memory told me he was killing my body, his cold kiss searing like fast-freezing ice through my veins, stealing my breath, stopping my blood from flowing and my heart from beating.
It was how he’d killed me when I was fourteen, how he’d managed to give my lifeless body back to the Autarch all those years ago ...
... while his bond with my soul had kept me from fading.
I took a breath, releasing the tension in my gut.
He wasdoing what I wanted him to.
Hannah’s body stilled. Her hands dropped away and her knees sagged until Malik’s mouth on hers and his hand on the nape of her neck and over her heart were the only things keeping her from falling. A shimmer moved under her skin, her head turned—only it wasn’t her head, but a transparent shade—and pulled away from his kiss, pushing at his shoulders, trying to break his hold.
Slowly he raised his head and I saw his eyes, incandescent with flame.
Now I needed to do my part.
Gripping the ghost knife, I plunged it into my body’s back—
–and a screech of rage shattered the quiet. Hannah’s ghost stumbled backwards, then swung round to face me. I stabbed her again, under the ribs and up into her heart, as she’d stabbed herself when she’d stolen my body. I used the knife and my hand to push her back until she was wedged between me and the stone altar behind her. She clawed at my face and yanked at my hair as I thrust the knife higher, then buried my face in her neck, biting and tearing at her throat, going for the carotid. She might not be living flesh, but neither was I, and Moth-girl and Scarface had taught me that while ghosts couldn’t touch the living, they had no problem killing those already dead. Hot blood spurted over me, blinding my sight, filling my mouth with its salt-copper taste, and I fed, mindless, desperate, insatiable, drinking it down, as some instinct told me I had to take it all and let not one drop remain in her body, not if I wanted her truly dead.
The blood slowed and thinned, turning as liquid as water, and her flesh dissolved under my hands until the taste was faint, almost insubstantial, and I held nothing more than wisps of air. And still I reached out, to trap each fleeing wisp and shred it with my fingers, until even the scent of her vanished into the darkness.
I slid down and huddled against the side of the stone altar, feeling sated, bloated with power that writhed around my bones, like snakes slithering in ecstasy through my body.
It was not an easy feeling, and yet it was seductive, and with a promise of more, if I would just let it in—
‘Genevieve?’
My murmured name intruded on my languor and slowly I raised my head. Tavish was frowning down at me, his delicate black gills flaring at his throat.
‘I am calling her back to her shell, kelpie, but I no longer sense her presence.’ Malik’s voice attracted my attention: he was kneeling over my limp body, his hands pressed to my bare chest. ‘Is her soul still here?’
‘Aye, she’s here, vampire,’ Tavish said softly, crouching down in front of me. His eyes shone dark pewter in the candlelight, the same colour as the beads on his green-black dreads. Apprehension and concern crossed on his face. ‘But the sorcerer’s darkness has tarnished her brilliance; it weighs her down, it swims like polluted eels in her consciousness, and still it tries to lure her away with it.’
The snakes flicked out their tongues and slithered down my arm, eager to taste. I reached out my hand and pushed it deep into his chest and he jerked back, snorting, his nostrils flaring and a rim of white fear showing round the edge of his dark silver eyes. And I tasted him: oranges, cut tart with terror and sweetened with yearning.
I smiled, and the snakes twined with lazy satisfaction as Tavish straightened and backed away.
‘What if I give the body an injection of adrenalin?’ a new voice said hesitantly. Joseph, his brown eyes blinking owl-like behind his glasses, stood in the doorway, hugging his black medical bag to his chest. ‘It’s what worked last time.’
Malik looked up and said, ‘Joseph, my friend, I thought we agreed that you would wait outside until this matter was settled.’
‘I couldn’t.’ He looked nervously round and moved towards Malik. ‘I want to help, after what that—what that womanmade me do.’ He stopped, gazing down at my body. ‘I have to try and help.’ He crouched down, put his bag on the floor and pushed his glasses up his nose. ‘I feel so awful about it all, as if it was my fault.’
The snakes hissed in unease and I tilted my head, puzzled; something was not right about the doctor.
‘You are not responsible for what the sorcerer made you do,’ Malik said quietly, sorrow lacing his words. ‘It was a spell she laid on you. The guilt is all hers.’
Joseph nodded, quick, anxious bobs of his head. ‘I understand that in my mind, but—’ He opened his bag. ‘At least let me try.’
I shifted anxiously and started to crawl towards him.
‘It canna hurt any, vampire,’ Tavish said, still wary as he followed me.
